Power Corrupts

Poetry Out Loud.

I watched "Unknown Girl In The Maternity Ward" by Anne Sexton, and as performed by Amanda Fernandez. Her performance was way beyond of what I could think a girl her age could ever accomplish. The way she conveyed her understanding upstage was as if she had that same experience. I thought her understanding was great but she did go a little over the top on dramatization. She could have mellowed her emotions a little more to make everything seem more natural. She looked as if she had been on the stage her whole life and did a great job of making the poem's meaning shine through.

I saw that the poem was about a mother who was to young to support her child, and that she must put it up for adoption. All she wants is the best for her baby and she wants to leave the bad emotions of the father behind her. The mother is extremely sad about her unfortunate situation, but knows that giving the baby away will be the best for everyone.

Mockingbird Motif

In the beginning of the year, I barely knew any literary terms at all, including a motif. But as we went over terms, I found out what a motif was and when we finished To Kill a Mockingbird, I then had a complete understanding for a motif and how to find it by analyzing a story. I now know that a motif is a reoccurring symbol in a book.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, the motif is a mockingbird and how it is a sin to kill one. It is a sin to kill a mockingbird because a mockingbird only makes beautiful music and never causes trouble. Boo Radley is one mockingbird because he is seen as being evil by the town, and that it would be like killing him if he was forced to come out because the city found out he killed Bob Ewell.Tom Robinson is the other mockingbird because he was found guilty for raping Mayella even though he was crippled and everyone knew he had not done anything wrong, which shows the other motif: justice vs. injustice which is made from prejudice between white and blacks.

Bob Ewell & Tom Robinson

It was said by Atticus that it was a sin to kill a mockingbird, but it's okay to kill a blue jay. It's because mockingbirds cause no harm whatsoever to anyone, much like Tom Robinson and the rest of the black community. On the Other hand, killing a blue jay is okay because they are annoying and cause too many problems like the whites in the Maycomb community, also known as the Ewells. Tom Robinson hadn't done anything wrong, but Bob Ewell tries to hide his guilt by falsely accusing him mostly because he is black.

Life Lessons

The one thing that I will always remember my father saying to me is that "There's No Free Lunch". What he actually is trying to say to me is that if you don't try, you will never succeed. It seems whenever I'm trying to do something difficult and I try to go the easy way out by giving up, my Dad brings those words up, which forces me to try again and again until I finish my job.

I think of it all the time, especially while doing any form of work. Even though I dislike everything about work, I have found out that if I at least do it, it will somehow pay off in one way or another. If I just don't finish, I regret it completely. When I want to achieve something, my Dad always reminds me how.

My Best Friend

. Out of all of my friends, I have one best friend. He is a normal height, weight etc. He is pretty much an overall beast. I became his friend the summer before fifth grade during the baseball season. I found him to be very nice and funny, making it easy for us to be friends. He's not the best joke maker, but even though most of jokes don't make sense, they still end up being funny. That's because he is just that kind of person that you can trust, so there's no reason at all on why you shouldn't be nice to him.

. Jacob is very outgoing and is nice to everyone, and when I say everyone, I am not kidding. If you saw him, he probably wouldn't look like the neatest person in the world, but you could definitely see his personality shine throughout the room. I think pretty much everyone in freshman class knows Jacob T. because of his great personality towards people. And I can also tell that that will always be his best attribute for the rest of his life. I could easily say that many other people also call Jacob their best friend too.

Earliest Memory

When I had to go to school for the first day of my life, I had weird feelings. I was nervous and excited. Scared and happy. I had a stomachache. I remember my parents walking me through many doors until we got to my classroom. In my first class there were about ten kids. They all looked nice and I could see that we were all nervous. Then the nice lady said hello to everyone and talked about how we had become big kids. We tried to learn names of new friends but gave up to play with the toys. I remember kids like me, happy everywhere. Playing with dinosaurs and cars. Coloring on paper and themselves.
What I remember from that day was that we were all happy and nice. All of us seemed to connect because we all knew we wanted our first memories to be nice. I barely remember times before that maybe because I knew that that was an important day for me, the start of the real life.

Slaughter-House Five IRONY

In Slaughterhouse five, Vonnegut uses his literary expertise to show that the dominant literary element is irony. I think Kurt Vonnegut used irony to not only make the story much more interesting, but also to show the true meanings of things without directly talking about it. For the whole book, he used twists and turns to make you think about what was really going on. Although it got a little confusing, Kurt did get his point across by the end of the book. And since he did keep me thinking from start to end, the main topic came out much clearer.

A strong example of irony I found was in the final chapter, at the very end.It is when the bird says 'poo-tee-weet?'. I find that very ironic because as an antiwar book, you would imagine the ending would send a huge blow against war and everything about it. But when you expect that big hit, it's just a little bird saying 'poo-tee-weet?'. What I think Vonnegut was trying to show was that poo-tee-weet and war both have one thing in common. Neither of them makes sense. Choosing this ending is probably the best way Vonnegut could end a antiwar novel because once you have finished, the meaning will forever be with you.

Outside Reading

Slaughterhouse five started confusing, but now I can see it's a very good book. It's an anti-war book and I can see that because the character speaks like he is against war. So far, the book has been easy, and the reading has gone by smoothly. I just want to get it over with, so even if there are boring parts, I don't really mind. One reoccurring element is definitely tone. It is obvious. Within the first five pages you know it's obvious. The way he talks about war, he is totally against it. It was written like this because it is an antiwar book, and the main character isn't a real big fan of the war. The tone of the book is based on his opinions. He thinks the war is a horrible thing and he wants his readers to know that too.

Writing About Reading: By Kasey No

When I start to read a new book, I most likely have no idea on what it's about. It may start very boring and lead to fun, or it may start as fun and lead to a whole lot of boring. I really have no idea how good a book will be, so I just read and read. If I don't actually get it, I just re-read that section of the book until the meaning just clicks in my mind.
If the world was perfect, I would always have the access to a quiet reading spot in the house. But unfortunately, with three other people in the house, that is nearly never possible. Really the only quiet time is in the middle of the night, which is when I would probably dose off whilst reading my book. So for the rest of my high school life, I need to get used to reading with a faint sound of the television or washing machine, no matter where I am in the house.
I would say my reading style really is anything. I would just say that I hate boring books because they're simply not good books to me. So I guess an exciting book would involve action and/or some sort of drama. I would pick a fiction book over a nonfiction any day because fiction is much more fun than the real world. When a good author can just use their imagination to write about someone instead of writing they're own version of the truth, 9 times out of 10, the whole story would be a lot more interesting.